During the middle of the night a strange thing happened, infact it happened more than once (don't get excited folks), unfortunately I had picked up my first case of Delhi Belly, and it was striking with a vengeance. The Shandyman was bedridden for 36hrs. It wasn't just the inconvenience of having to go to the loo (at high speed) over 900 times, OK, several times an hour every hour, and enduring some grade A stomach cramps in the process (the cramps felt like contractions, nay, I felt like Sigourney Weaver in Aliens), it was the added inconvenience of being eaten alive by an army of bed bugs at the same time. So here I am, bedridden (it hurt my stomach to move) and providing breakfast, lunch and tea for about 200 bloodthirsty parasites. It was a nightmare and without a doubt the worst day and a half of my trip so far. By 9pm the following night I managed to tentatively eat a yogurt and drink a pint of milk which for some reason my body was craving. I wondered if the toilet trips would eventually subside and rather like checking someones pulse began timing the intervals, 10 minutes went to 15, to 30, to an hour. Progress. I read on the internet about all the nasties you can contract via food and water and SE Asia seemed to have a monopoly on just about every nasty bacteria and virus that could possibly be ingested. I did find some good advice on a government health website that said travellers might well get Delhi Belly a week or so after landing in these parts. It's bang on a week since I landed in Bangkok so that would fit. The next piece of advice was to ride out the storm until the symptoms abated - usually a couple of days later and take no medicines so that the body can build up a natural immunity or tolerance to these new bugs. This is exactly what I did and sure enough the Shandy System is now totally immune to every bug this side of India. It wasn't pleasant though.
Spent another night feeding the bedbugs, it's horrible, leaving bite marks all over your body, back, shoulders, bum (is nothing sacred). Bedbugs are very hard to kill as their exoskeleton provides a robust shell, you see they need to be able to survive you rolling over on them in your sleep as they dig in and suck your blood for a good ten minutes. I vowed to change rooms in the morning now I was feeling stronger.
Spent another night feeding the bedbugs, it's horrible, leaving bite marks all over your body, back, shoulders, bum (is nothing sacred). Bedbugs are very hard to kill as their exoskeleton provides a robust shell, you see they need to be able to survive you rolling over on them in your sleep as they dig in and suck your blood for a good ten minutes. I vowed to change rooms in the morning now I was feeling stronger.
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